Why the crisis in Honduras is so important for Bolivia

Sorry to go on about Honduras when this is a blog about Bolivia. I can't help to think, however, that what happens in Honduras is of enormous importance to Latin America generally, the standing of the US in the region, and to Bolivia in particular.

Let's start with the latest on the crisis. The negotiation table that Washington set up between the 'two contending parties', as Hillary Clinton referred to the coup instigators and the democratically elected president of the country, has failed. It has failed because the de facto president Micheletti has refused to attend the last two negotiation meetings chaired by Oscar Arias in Costa Rica. This has prompted Manuel Zelaya to declare his intentions to return to his country where he risks being detained and imprisoned. Or worse where his presence might lead to a civil insurrection with the possibility of violence and, dare I say it, civil war.

Meanwhile, a troubling 'legitimation' of the coup took place when a delegation of the golpistas visited Manuel Uribe in Colombia who showed signs of 'understanding' for the coup. This, by the way, a Colombian president who is seeking to change the constitution in order to get a third term. Wasn't Zelaya's attempt to hold a non-binding referendum on the possibility of having a second term the explanation given for the coup? Some people just have no sense of irony.

So why is this coup and its possible success a problem for Latin America and the US? Firstly, because it is happening with the tacit support of the US. Obama has called it illegal but Clinton seems to legitimise the coup when she refers to it as an internal political dispute. Sorry Hillary but it isn't. This is a very dangerous precedent in a region with long and bloody wars fuelled by US involvement.

The US is playing very dangerously with the great hopes of a new beginning in US-Latin American relations Obama created a few months ago in Trinidad and Tobago. All Latin American countries know that this coup would be over if the US withheld support for the military in Honduras. Not acting decisively on it is tantamount to supporting it. Except that Washington acted decisively to remove Miguel Insulza, head of the Organisation of American States, from the scene, installing instead Oscar Arias, a much safer pair of hands for those who want the coup to succeed.

Secondly, because progressive Latin American governments confronting extremist right oppositions like the Bolivian one, know that a coup victory in Honduras would set a very dangerous precedent in the region. Opposition leaders in Bolivia like the prefect of Santa Cruz have already declared themselves in support of the coup. This is interesting given that his usual accusation to this government is that there is no democracy in Bolivia. What is worrying is that a victory for the military and the coup in Honduras could make more, no less, possible, the replication of other similar attempts in Bolivia. We know that entrepreneurs and landowners from Santa Cruz recruited and paid the foreign mercenaries arrested in Santa Cruz arrested last March. Could Micheletti's victory in Honduras lead to more such attempts over here? The next few months leading to the presidential elections of December could be last opportunity for those who desperately want to reverse the process of change in Bolivia.